The Department of Social Services will continue meeting with those connected Medicaid in Missouri to discuss how the spend down provision of that program is applied.
Director of the Department of Social Services' Family Services Division Alyson Campbell conducted a recent meeting with Medicaid stakeholders to discuss how the spend down is applied.
Family Support Division Director Alyson Campbell says it was discovered that some of the Division’s staff were allowing costs paid by Medicare or private insurance to count toward patients’ spend down amounts, which by federal guidelines is incorrect. When it began those staff members, individually, to amend that practice, the patients they worked with were impacted.
Division staff have held one meeting with providers and other stakeholders to discuss the situation. Campbell says the goal is to help people understand how the spend down must be applied and to look for other ways patients’ needs can be met within that structure.
She says the greatest impact regards the use of what she calls “wraparound services,” including transportation and homecare. “People are receiving those services today, and with the changes, or with the correction of the policy that we’re trying to implement, it’s possible that those services…they would not qualify for those services because the Medicaid coverage wouldn’t kick in as early in the month as it did previously.”
Campbell says right now the discussion is centered on what other options are available within federal guidelines.
The Division will host another meeting from 10:00 a.m. until noon January 5 in Room 400 of the Harry S. Truman Building in Jefferson City.